South River business section under review

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SOUTH RIVER – What was once a village business hub may be changing.
According to South River deputy-mayor Bill O’Hallarn council is beginning the process to review their Official Plan.
As part of this review, council is looking toward Ottawa Avenue, currently zoned as commercial.
“What we want to do is look at it. Look at the feasibility of potentially looking to other uses and making them available,” he said.
O’Hallarn says there has been changes in the business core of the Village.
“The business tends to be more on Highway 124 now. Not as much uptown,” he said. “The plan may have to change in order to catch up to the way that the properties are being used.”
O’Hallarn says they recently hired a planning consultant but are at the very early stages of the plan review.
“We are trying to respond to the situation where we see that the actual use has shifted to another area,” he said.
He says they will on information that they already know, listen to what the planner has to say and get public opinion to determine whether zoning and land use requirements for the Ottawa Avenue area should be changed.
O’Hallarn says the review of the Official Plan is a routine process and thus far he doesn’t believe they will be looking at many changes.
“This came up as a potential area to look at so we thought our review will most likely focus on that area,” he said. “If something else comes up, or if some of our ratepayers come up with some other concerns we would try to build them into the review too.”
O’Hallarn says the decision to look at changes to the Ottawa Avenue zoning was not only brought about by council seeing the way the business sector in South River is shifting but also requests from members of the public asking for them to consider changes to the zoning.
“We’ve also ourselves recognized that the original downtown core is not as business dense as we’d like to see it,” he said. “We agreed that it might be time that we reconsider.”
Story by Mary Beth Hartill mhartill@metrolandnorthmedia.com